There are no other words than “stupid” or “insane” to the recent PR stunt of the US Authors Guild calling Amazon Kinlde’s text to speech technology “illegal” (see http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/02/10/authors-guild-claims.html). It’s most likely the Germans will follow suit.

This alleged “audio right” isn’t.

It’s like reading abook using glasses. But I’m sure you’d find a way to call “reading with glasses” a derivative under copyright law … maybe even plain reading?